


Camping

by Maggiemaye



Series: Under the Mountain [9]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Family Fluff, Gen, Growing Pains, Teen Angst-ish, mom!Tauriel, mother-daughter bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 10:43:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4097989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggiemaye/pseuds/Maggiemaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she were pretty, or had an aptitude for anything important, things might be different. How she could actually have come from the womb of the stunning, fearsome elf beside her is often a mystery to Rhuna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camping

Rhuna has never felt any particular joy in the idea of killing things, even if the things are very evil. She does not understand the thrill of sending an arrow through a target, living or otherwise. The guard’s training exercises bore her to watch. Generally she prefers her metalwork (a harmless activity that is not at all sweaty or confrontational), content to leave the killing and dismembering to her parents and eager brothers.

However, as she stares up at the canvas ceiling above her, wide awake for the third straight hour thanks to the snores of the dwarrow surrounding her, Rhuna’s thoughts take a homicidal turn.

Their family has been on the road for several days, en route to the elven city of Rivendell on a diplomatic errand. The journey will be long; they will have to travel almost the entire breadth of Arda to reach their destination, and they have only just made it past Dale. Initially Rhuna had resisted the idea of leaving the mountain for so long, but she has found that she likes the open air and sky. She thinks she could get used to life on the road, away from crowds and prying eyes.

Nighttime brings its own challenges, however. She cannot understand how the males of her father’s race can breathe so normally during the daylight hours, and be so deafening as soon as they fall asleep. Their guards sleep in the next tent, apart from the family, but that does little to muffle their noise. Rhuna is in the process of training herself to fall asleep nearly the moment the sun goes down, well before anyone else, so that she can avoid this particular problem. But her technique obviously still needs refinement.

Muttering under her breath, she sits up and glares at each member of her family in turn. Even if they cannot see her, it makes her feel marginally better. Until she realizes that there is one less lump than she expected. Her mother is not there.

Deciding that she may as well seek out some company since she won’t be sleeping any time soon, Rhuna gets to her feet. She steps gingerly around her brothers, even though she feels like giving them all a swift, well-placed kick. Their father shifts as she tiptoes toward him, and for a heart-stopping moment she thinks she might have woken him, but he simply turns over to sprawl on his back. Rhuna lifts her skirt a bit so that she can step over him and out of the tent, into the calm night.

They have made their camp in an open area; in the daylight, the Mirkwood is just visible on the western horizon. It is very dark outside with no fire to light her way, but Rhuna isn’t half-elven for nothing. She shuts her eyes and listens hard to the sounds of the night, underneath the cacophony of slumbering dwarves behind her. At first it is just the rustle of leaves and the skittering of tiny wings, claws, and insect feet. But soon Rhuna hears something brush softly against the grass, and she knows it is no animal.

She follows the sound, trying to keep her footfalls quiet. Unfortunately, her night vision is not nearly so keen as her hearing, and she nearly trips over her mother in the darkness. Tauriel is lying on her back, perfectly still, gazing up at the sky.  

“Rhuna?” She sits up. “Why are you not sleeping?”

“Everyone _snores,”_ Rhuna grumbles. “How can you sleep right next to Adad every night?”

Tauriel looks amused. “Well, one dwarf snoring in my ear is very different than ten,” she says with a wink, and Rhuna giggles. Her mother pats the ground next to her before lying flat on her back again, spreading her curtain of hair out behind her. Rhuna looks admiringly at it for a moment before taking the spot offered, coiling her own thick blonde braid beneath her head for cushion.

“What are you doing, anyway, Amad?”

“I am enjoying the night sky. There are so few opportunities to do so at home.”

“Oh, I _know,”_ Rhuna says eagerly. So far, one of her favorite parts about being on the road is the chance to take in the vast field of stars above. When one sleeps underground, it is easy to take such things for granted. “I never noticed how bright the stars are, and there are so _many_ of them out here. And sometimes—“

She stops, fearing that she will sound silly if she continues. Her mother is just so graceful and regal, composed at all time, and Rhuna feels ungainly by comparison. Being a child of two races is not often simple; there seems to be a constant question of whether she is “elf enough” or “dwarf enough,” and she is afraid the answer will never come. Too tall and docile for dwarves, too bearded for elves and men, she has learned by now that she will be an oddity wherever she goes. No matter how often her father calls her _ghivashel_ , Rhuna understands all too well how other folk see her.

If she were pretty, or had an aptitude for anything important, things might be different. How she could actually have come from the womb of the stunning, fearsome elf beside her is often a mystery to Rhuna.

“Sometimes?” Tauriel prompts, bringing her back to the moment.

“Never mind,” she frowns. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“I daresay I will not.”

Rhuna can feel her face turning red. “Well, sometimes…if I look at the stars long enough I think I can hear music. Like…like bells, or strings, but not a fiddle. Something else.”

“Harps,” her mother says quietly.

Rhuna has seen pictures of harps before, but has never heard one played. It is an elven instrument, Ori says, and her mother—the only elf Rhuna knows—isn’t particularly musical.

“I guess so. Almost like a waterfall, but...brighter, I guess?” She stops, frustrated. “Sorry, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“I think you explained it very well, my love,” says her mother, and Rhuna smiles to feel Tauriel reach out to pat her hand.

“Did I ever tell you that I used to walk among the stars, when I was young?”

Rhuna sits up to look down at her. _“No,”_ she says, incredulous. “I think I would have remembered _that._ And I thought you were still young for an elf.”

Tauriel smiles. “Well, yes, I suppose I am. But I mean when I was much younger, and still lived in the Mirkwood.”

Rhuna holds her breath, afraid to say anything more for fear it will break the spell. Her mother rarely, if ever, speaks of her life before Erebor. Rhuna knows that she spent several lifetimes’ worth of years among her own people, as captain of King Thranduil’s guard. But this is the extent of her knowledge, and although she desperately wants to know her mother better, she isn’t always sure how to ask.

“Um,” she says. “How exactly do you walk among the stars?”

Tauriel gives her a peculiar, searching look. “Perhaps it would be best if I showed you. Here, lie back beside me.”

Rhuna feels as if she is missing something. But she does her mother’s bidding, smiling at the sight of the stars covering the sky like a warm blanket. She greets them in her mind.

“Now, we will simply lie quietly for a while and look up. Try to lose yourself in the starlight.”

That doesn’t sound so difficult. And indeed, the more Rhuna gazes into the starlight the more peaceful she feels. She was not imagining the harps, she discovers; the ethereal plinking is now unmistakable in her ears. Very slowly, the world fades as the stars seem to grow closer and closer.  

“What do you see, Rhuna?” Her mother’s voice sounds faint, as if it is coming from a great distance. Rhuna answers without looking away from the sky.

“Everything is getting brighter. And—and I can’t feel the ground anymore.”

“It’s all right,” she says encouragingly. “You are safe. Keep looking.”

Rhuna looks and looks until all she can see is white. It is brighter than any light she has ever seen, and yet it does not hurt her eyes. The light seems to bear her aloft, cradling her, whispering tenderly in a language she does not know. Far from being frightened, Rhuna feels more refreshed than she has in weeks.

“Now you understand what I mean.”

Rhuna turns to greet the familiar voice. There is her beautiful mother, looking at her with a tender smile. 

“Amad! Is this real?”

“It is very real. Elves often come to this place, to seek renewal from the light of the stars.”

Her mother looks so perfectly at ease, more natural than she has ever seemed in Erebor. She seems to glow from within. Looking at her, Rhuna suddenly feels a hot flood of uncertainty.

“But…but I’m not really an elf, Amad. I don’t know what I am.” She crosses her arms around her middle and looks down, seeing nothing but white beneath her feet.

Tauriel reaches out to take Rhuna’s face in her hands. She locks their eyes, stroking her daughter’s beard with her thumbs. It is a gesture that often used to calm Rhuna as a dwarfling, when she’d been sick or scared. Though she considers herself too old for such comforts, she is grateful now for her mother’s reassuring touch.

“You are yourself, my love, and that is remarkable,” Tauriel whispers, as if they are sharing a confidence. “Even the stars know it.”

She quirks an eyebrow, and Rhuna cannot help but smile. It would be wrong to feel sad in this magical place, she thinks. And if she wishes, there will be time later for further talk. Now, though, Rhuna bumps shoulders with her mother, who loops their arms together with a wide grin. She truly does seem young in this place, and Rhuna finds that her eagerness is contagious.

They walk together in the white light, taking their time, until dawn comes to greet them.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! First things first: ghivashel is a term of endearment I've seen used a lot around the fandom, meaning "treasure." (But you guys probably already knew that, of course.) Also, I named Rhuna and then realized there is actually a place in Middle-earth called the Sea of Rhun. #tolkienception 
> 
> I picture Rhuna being the equivalent of around 12/13 years old in this little piece. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!


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